A Celebration of the Radio Listening Hobby

Experiments with SDR Luigi Freitas Beating the Solar Minimum Doldrums Solar Minimums. Yes, they are a drag. We've been talking about the solar minimum for some time in the amateur radio community, but of course we are not the only ones affected by the lack of vigorous ionization. Shortwave radio is affected, utility monitoring is affected, as well as almost any signals dependent on the atmosphere for propagation. And yet . . . . The truth is there are always radio signals of one form or another traversing the sky, running along the ground, or shooting straight at us from

With all of the buzz created by our recent Solar Eclipse here in the states, many hams wondered what the effects of such an eclipse would have on propagation. I admit I was mildly curious myself, but did not expect big swings in any direction. Locally the effect was pretty minimal, even with 91% totality. I expected the sky to get much darker than it did here, but in reality, it didn't even come close to a mildly cloudy day. But there has been enough written already about the solar eclipse, and much more will be written. My interest here

Today a good friend of mine, Justin KE8COY, posted a link referencing a broadcast piece on Natural Radio - a reference to the radio signals produced naturally by the earth. The piece notes how it was Thomas Watson, co-inventor of the telephone, who first heard the earth's radio signals coming over a telephone test line strung up over the roofs of houses in Boston. The piece is fascinating, and opens up yet another aspect of radio I (and Justin) find fascinating. And yes I know I am using "fascinating" repeatedly to describe this aspect of the hobby, but it truly

The extreme ultraviolet flash from today's M6.7-class solar flare. Credit: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory There is some new and interesting sunspot activity from a large heart-shaped sunspot which has been drawing some attention recently. Here's the scoop from Spaceweather.com: BIG SUNSPOT ERUPTS: Surprise! Quiet sunspot AR2529 isn't so quiet, after all. The heart-shaped active region erupted on April 18th (00:39 UT), producing a strong M6.7-class solar flare and shortwave radio blackouts around the Pacific. Visit http://spaceweather.com for more information. Might wake up some ionization activity, the bread and butter of our radio hobby! 73, Robert

The auroral activity and geomagnetic storm activity continues this week as the sun has developed a coronal hole. This giant hole is allowing solar winds to be sent hurtling our way, with a large enough stream scientists are predicting we may be in for a week of heightened geomagnetic activity. An image from our solar observation posts shows the hole, with the superimposed white arrows showing normal solar wind activity and the breaks, or hole, which will allow the winds to come our way. Normally the sun's activities cause the solar winds to bend back down on themselves as the